7-Eleven stores saw grocery sales rise 2 to 3 percent last month over a year ago, Tom Gerrity, director of that corporation’s processed foods division told The Washington Post. Frozen food sales grew 7 percent, and ready-to-eat meals jumped 9 percent, in what experts say may be a national trend to buy more locally.

“Some of the products that would typically be purchased at a supermarket or club store in bulk quantities, we’re seeing more customers buy those products throughout the month at a 7-Eleven,” he said.

Those smaller food purchases may soon change convenience store marketing emphasis away from simply gasoline, cigarettes and other tobacco products, bottled beverages and alcoholic drinks, say observers.

“It’s important to add destination appeal so that shoppers think of them not only as convenience,” said Jennifer Halterman, Retail Forward senior consultant. “Adding that second layer can help them in the future.”

The move follows similar strategies by Tesco, Marks & Spencer and J Sainsbury. It marks a new campaign by the Co-op to compete with mainstream competition by pushing its ethical message.

The Co-op began trials six weeks ago in stores in Nottingham, Brighton and Hove. Of its 2,200 food stores, it believes it could open mini-banks in the 250 biggest.

The Co-op is investing £1m in the project, part of its strategy to double market share in financial services over five years. David Anderson, chief executive of Co-operative Financial Services since June 2005, said there was a “huge opportunity” as “there is very little cross-holding between products”.

On average customers have 1.3 financial products. “We think we can push that to over two, which would mean we can almost double our customer base without finding any new customers.”

The Co-op is also aiming to boost cross-selling between the group, which includes pharmacy, funeral arrangement, travel and legal advice services. The organisation has three million members, and a third of those have no Co-op financial services products.

The roll-out will vary from some stores where there is a machine to withdraw cash and deposit cheques to others where there will be staff to advise on products including mortgages and investments.

Having more banking branches should support the Co-op’s phone and internet bank, Smile, as customers like to have the option of a physical branch even if they carry out most banking transactions electronically, Mr Anderson said.

The Co-op also believes it has a competitive advantage because of its ethical investment credentials. “One-third of our profits are from customers who say they joined for our ethical policy,” he said.

Status of e-commerce
The first thing we noted is that it is quite difficult to compare the status of e-commerce development in different countries due to market size, Internet population, GDP and purchasing power. How can one compare properly between such diverse markets as the United States, China, Japan and South Korea?

After working on various models, we identified the share of e-commerce as part of the total retail market as a usable metric to highlight the development of e-commerce. This confirmed our intuition that South Korea is the most advanced, with 6.5 percent of all retail being e-commerce. The United States and Japan are somewhere around 4 percent, while China is still at a very early stage with 0.63 percent, but poised for explosive growth.

If Japan is not that advanced in e-commerce, it is the world leader in mobile commerce; the leading B2C player Rakuten gets 20 percent of its revenue from mobile commerce. The whole market represented over $6 billion in 2007, far ahead of any other market and even close to the entire Chinese EC market at $8 billion.

Why and how to grow a successful EC market
This was a question discussed at a recent seminar between China’s Ministry of Commerce and the European Union where we contributed as invited experts. A successful e-commerce market actually develops the retail market and helps companies sell more, but more than anything is able to create jobs. Well over a million users make a living from eBay globally and there is huge potential in job creation with Taobao and other services in China.

One might then wonder how to enable e-commerce and accelerate its development. There are many reasons for e-commerce development that can be attributed to culture, purchasing habits, regulations, logistics reliability, credit card usage and GDP development, but once we completed the following graphic, we became quite convinced that the main enabler for e-commerce or mobile commerce was IT infrastructure.

Korea leads in Internet speed and in e-commerce, while Japan leads in 3G and mobile commerce, which seems in line with their IT infrastructure development. The key element aside from the presence of a sophisticated IT infrastructure seems to be the length during which said infrastructure has been around. For instance, Japan developed its fixed broadband more recently than Korea and has less experience with it, but Japan is expected to grow rapidly.

Just as governments have a responsibility in developing roads, bring electricity and water, we tend to think that building a strong IT infrastructure is the best enabler to develop the knowledge economy and retail market, and that governments should – directly by financing or indirectly by stirring up competition – support rapid IT development to enable economies to go digital.

Future trends
As a conclusion, here are some key trends in e-commerce we identified:

(1) B2C (e.g. Amazon) and C2C (e.g. eBay) models are converging. B2C is generally a guarantee of quality but not of price, while C2C offers good price, but quality and payment is generally more risky. This year, eBay’s “fixed price auctions” are going to represent half of its revenues.

(2) Mobile commerce is going to happen. In fact, it is already happening in Japan because of their advanced infrastructure. Other countries will have the same happening when they will catch up, within the next few years.

(3) Social networks will blend with e-commerce. Remember the time when there was no Internet? There was also a time when there was no advertising. At that time, people mostly asked their friends about what to buy and what was good. As people become more and more disenchanted by advertising, this time is coming back and we saw the first signs of convergence in some services like Alimama and Japan’s NicoNico Video.

(4) Online and offline will connect. While an increasing number of offline stores are going online, already some online stores in South Korea are opening offline shops. Some Korean and Japanese auction and e-commerce sites are using existing retail networks such as convenience stores or subway stations as delivery and pick-up points.

(5) Meta-shopping will develop. This is a new concept in Korea. If you remember Korea is the world’s most advanced e-commerce market, this is worth looking into. It follows the development of numerous online shopping malls (several thousands in Korea), and provides a sophisticated-yet-easy-to-use combination of price comparison and user reviews. It has been created by Korea’s largest Internet portal Naver, who call this service “Knowledge Search”.

Just as China sells today more music online (PC and mobile) than offline, we think the combination of strong SNS usage and online shopping developments are able to help the country leapfrog from an offline to an online economy. Moreover, for retail success in China, China has the advantage of having very few barriers compared to other countries which have a strong offline retail legacy. So here is our advice to retailers in or coming to China: think digital!

Family Mart convenience stores, for instance, will launch three new kinds of meal boxes at a unit price of NT$50, lower than the previous price of NT$60.

Lin Chui-chuan, public relations manager of Family Mart, said that Family Mart will launch the “one NT$50 coin can settle one meal for you” campaign to attract patronage from more office workers starting March 10.

Read more >>>

The purchase "is a continuation of our relationship with BP and the strength of working together," Kelly Kroll, director of marketing for Atlas Oil, told CSNews Online. "[The stores] overlay attractively with the current market space logistics and operations."

As reported in a CSNews Online news flash yesterday, the purchase will bring Atlas’ total BP station count in the region to 113, and is scheduled to close in June. Atlas will supply the locations with fuel, and will operate the stores initially, but in the future, may give dealers the opportunity to purchase sites from Atlas or employ another operational model, depending on the location, Kroll said.

The company’s focus on Chicago has come from its acquisitions strategy, which over the past several years has brought its from southwest Michigan to Indiana and farther west, Kroll said.

"There’s clear operational efficiency for transportation and logistics," he said. "Chicago is still a forward moving market space, and we are behaving like most other organizations and we follow the money."

With the completion of this deal, Atlas will manage the supply of nearly 400 retail locations in total throughout the U.S. In addition, Atlas’ annual distribution of BP fuel will top more than 300,000,000 gallons through this acquisition, making it one of BP’s largest distributors, according to the company.

"Atlas Oil Co. has proven to be a great business partner for BP," Sean Daley, vice president Midwest Sales of BP Products North America, said in a statement. "Atlas’ distribution, supply management and operational capabilities have given us considerable confidence and trust in their ability to manage these BP branded retail assets in one of the most important Midwest markets for BP and the ampm franchise offer."

But Atlas’ growth will not stop soon. By 2015, the company has a distribution goal of 5 billion gallons. Meanwhile, it continues its expansion through purchases such as this, which is the third from BP in a year. Previous transactions include 23 sites in September 2008, and 57 sites in January 2009.

"Despite challenging economic conditions nationally and in our home state of Michigan, we continue to meet our growth objectives in the Midwest market," Mike Evans, executive vice president of business development for Atlas Oil, said in a statement. "Each acquisition expands the markets in which we can prospect for new opportunities, and we look forward to being able to further develop our relationship with BP by converting additional locations to the BP brand."

Kroll added: "In general, recessions are bad for everyone’s growth plan, but it does provide some opportunities on the acquisition side, where some costs do go down. When the market is depressed there are bargains to be had."

By Mehgan Belanger

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Target (NYSE:TGT) today announced the opening of 23 new stores. Of these, four are general merchandise stores, 17 are general merchandise stores with expanded food options and two are full-grocery SuperTarget stores. All 23 stores will celebrate their grand opening on Sunday, July 26, 2009.

General Merchandise Stores

Locations receiving a general merchandise store include:
* Kona, Hawaii
* Warren, Mich.
* Bronx Terminal, N.Y.
* Cheltenham, Pa.

The general merchandise stores feature a blend of everyday essentials including household products, electronics, clothing, and an assortment of food and seasonal merchandise. These stores offer amenities such as a Starbucks®, Target CaféSM and Target PharmacySM. Target also balances a wide range of national brands with its own Target brands like Archer Farms™, Choxie™, Market Pantry™ and up & upTM. Each general merchandise store employs 100-250 team members and is approximately 127,000 square feet.

General Merchandise Stores Receiving Expanded Food Options

Locations receiving an expanded food format store include:
* Vista South, Calif.
* Exeter Township, Pa.
* Lisbon, Conn.
* Hanover Twp., Pa.
* Spring Hill East, Fla.
* Lower Nazareth, Pa.
* West Melbourne, Fla.
* West Pottsgrove Twp., Pa.
* Cedar Falls, Iowa
* Huntsville, Texas
* Hammond, La.
* Hampton, Va.
* Las Vegas N. Decatur, Nev.
* Martinsburg, W.Va.
* Greenland, N.H.
* Waukesha South, Wis.
* Chili, N.Y.

The 17 expanded food stores offer all of the merchandise found in our general merchandise stores with the added convenience of fresh food. This new format has an open-market layout and features new food additions including basic fresh produce, fresh meat and bakery goods. Each expanded food format store employs 100-250 team members and is approximately 135,000 square feet.

SuperTarget Stores

Locations receiving a SuperTarget include:
* Murrieta North, Calif.
* Wylie, Texas

SuperTarget stores offer a complete, one-stop-shopping destination by combining the convenience of a general merchandise store with a full-scale grocery. Additional merchandise options include a complete assortment of fresh produce, and an on-site bakery and deli. Each SuperTarget employs 200-300 team members and is approximately 186,000 square feet.

About Target

As of Sunday, July 26, Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,719 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

Note: Target welcomes the media to its stores. To contact your local store about store events, merchandise and community programs please visit “Find a Store” at www.Target.com. Images can be found at www.Target.com/Pressroom under the category “Target Stores.”

In a survey conducted by customer intelligence company Market Force, electrical retailers had the lowest customer service satisfaction score of any service industry with just 2.24 per cent of shoppers left happy.

Clothing retailers scored only 2.69 per cent, supermarkets polled 6.10 per cent, local convenience stores received 6.48 per cent backing from consumers, while department stores got the highest score of any retail business type with 9.72 per cent left satisfied.

Of those surveyed 41 per cent said that their biggest frustration with store staff is a lack of interest in their needs and wants, and despite more than three quarter of people preferring bricks and mortar shopping to online as a many as 88 per cent will leave a shop if service is poor.

Tim Ogle, CEO at Market Force Europe, commented: “Good customer service doesn’t have to be expensive. Small, inexpensive changes can have an oversize impact on whether someone buys in your shop and how much they spend.

“For example, our research shows eight out of ten shoppers want to be taken to a product when asking about its location. It’s these little gems of insight that turn a question into a sale.”

Retailers are increasingly realising that in order to make their bricks and mortar offer as compelling as their online platforms they have to improve the experience of visiting their stores.

This morning the UK’s largest retailer Tesco announced a huge recruitment drive, which in part is in reaction to a perceived drop in the supermarket chain’s service levels in recent years.

Several simple service techniques could be employed by businesses to boost trading it seems, with Market Force also finding that 59 per cent of shoppers like products to be recommended to them by staff members.

Although shoppers like to have a personal service, they also seem open to new technologies which cut out staff interaction, with 63 per cent saying they like to use self-service machine and 49 per cent in favour of contactless payments.

In a warning to retailers keen to make more transactions automated however, the research shows that 37 per cent of consumers feel they should pay less when using self-service checkouts.

Compared to other industries retail appears to be struggling to please its consumers at present, with banks (10.8 per cent), restaurants/pubs (28.3 per cent), and hotels (31.5 per cent) all scoring higher customer satisfaction levels in the Market Force survey.

Ogle added: “These findings should be a wakeup call to retailers looking for cost effective ways to grow their business.”